HOW WE LEARN ASK THE COGNITIVE SCIENTIST Students Remember…What They Think About How does the mind work–and especially how does it learn?
Teachers make assumptions all day long about how students best comprehend, remember, and create. These assumptions–and the teaching decisions that result–are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such gut knowledge often serves us well. But is there anything sturdier to rely on? Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind. In this regular American Educator column, we will consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application. Daniel T. Willingham Issue: The teacher presents a strong, coherent lesson in which a set of significant facts is clearly connected to a reasonable conclusion. But, at test time, the students show no understanding of the connections. Some students parrot back the conclusion, but no facts. Others spit back memo
Related Questions
- HOW WE LEARN ASK THE COGNITIVE SCIENTIST Students Remember...What They Think About How does the mind work--and especially how does it learn?
- How do you think problem based learning helps students experience & learn through real life situations?
- What instructional strategies will help students learn to think?
